Fat White Vampire Blues

Vampire, nosferatu, creature of the night–whatever you call him–Jules Duchon has lived (so to speak) in New Orleans far longer than there have been drunk coeds on Bourbon Street. Weighing in at a whopping 450 pounds, swelled up on the sweet, rich blood of people who consume the world’s fattiest diet, Jules is thankful he can’t see his reflection in a mirror. What’s worse, he’s watched his neighborhood truly go to hell–and now, a new vampire is looking to drive him out altogether. Jules must find a way to contend with the hurdles that life throws at him . . . without getting a stake through the heart. It’s enough to give a man the blues.
(from the back cover blurb)

“Poor Jules Duchon. It isn’t easy being a vampire in New Orleans . . . Jules is an often hapless hero, but a sympathetic one, and readers of vampire fiction will delight in this droll parody of the genre.”
–Booklist (*Starred Review*)

“This wry, witty, and often hilarious first novel delivers a wonderful mixture of characters and lovingly evokes the charm of the Big Easy.” Read more
–Library Journal

“Exuberantly tasteless . . . almost as much fun to read as it probably was to write.” Read more
–Kirkus Reviews

“There’s a great tradition of New Orleans vampire novels . . . In this very, very funny first novel, Andrew Fox bears the standard high . . . [he] brings the city in all its immense variety, all its tastes, its smells, its customs and self-contradictions, darkly to life. Sharply plotted, witty in language and invention, Fat White Vampire Blues moves to a perfect if unsuspected conclusion.” Read more
–James Sallis, Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction

“For all its wackiness and deliberate parodies, Fat White Vampire Blues comes surprisingly close to what has been called the “gargantuan tumultuous human tragicomedy” of A Confederacy of Dunces. It’s witty, moving, possessed of a keen social consciousness, and serves as a clear-eyed tribute to a great city over the course of time. And by book’s end, Jules is more than an obese undead loser; we know him as a man.”
-Faren Miller, Locus

“After two decades of reviewing books for Fangoria, I don’t recall being as surprised and delighted as I was with Fat White Vampire Blues. Andrew Fox’s hero is the anti-Lestat we didn’t even know we needed. This is the best thing to happen to vampire fiction in ages.”
-Linda Marotta, Fangoria Magazine

“Fat White Vampire Blues . . . is a relentlessly entertaining romp through New Orleans’s supernatural underworld. It’s the best vampire comedy since Christopher Moore’s sardonic ode to San Francisco, the classic Bloodsucking Fiends. . . . (The book) is a surprisingly inventive, moving and complex tale that never fails to elicit a smile, even at its most brutal or at its most tender. And it has a killer ending–the kind of powerful final punch that elevates a novel another notch or two.” Read more
-Claude Lalumiere, Montreal Gazette

“Fat White Vampire Blues is like the drunken revelry of Mardi gras. You never know what odd character is going to show up on the next page. You often find yourself laughing hysterically and sometimes can’t even remember why. In the back of your mind you will have an urge for a hurricane and basin street Jazz. Most of all you know you don’t want all the fun to end.” Read more
Brian Houle, About.com

“Fat White Vampire Blues passes the ‘Something New’ test with flying colors. . . Andrew Fox has done the seemingly impossible: paying homage to New Orleans and to John Kennedy Toole’s near-legendary A Confederacy of Dunces while simultaneously giving us a gentle satire of Anne Rice and Laurel K. Hamilton. Amazingly, the book doesn’t collapse under all that weight. It’s funny, it’s touching, and the characters, even the eccentric ones, ring true.” Read more
Peggy Hailey, RevolutionSF.com

“While New Orleans has enjoyed its own renaissance of interest in vampire culture thanks to the mid-1990s success of Anne Rice, another author has turned the suave image of undead bloodsuckers on its head. Fat White Vampire Blues. . . puts the sarcastic bite back into the passe archetype of the lovely immortal.” Read more
Kris Bares, New Orleans Gambit Weekly

“Jules’s escapades through a Crescent City populated by strippers, drag queens, cab drivers and gang members hustling amid settings familiar to those of us in South Louisiana should delight fans of vampire fiction and of stories set in the Big Easy.” Read more
June Pulliam, Necrofile